


Transient.

by airute (siruru)



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Horror, Angst and Tragedy, Based on a Vocaloid Song, Character Death, Childhood Friends, Death, Drama & Romance, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Murder Mystery, Mystery, Paranormal, Psychological Horror, Psychological Trauma, Reader-Insert, Supernatural Elements, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 10:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18990940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siruru/pseuds/airute
Summary: Say goodnight to the girl of yesterday, she might not be coming back.[Reader/Kozato Enma] [Implied Reader/Tsuna Sawada]





	1. one call, love call.

transient  
 **i'll carve myself into your heart forever.**

“ _…h…e…l…p!_ ”

  
It is not supposed to be like this, but he keeps screaming and screaming. The damp acid keeps filling and shredding his lungs of whatever air he may have left. Those sweet and macabre wounds of his are bleeding red red everywhere, so it is only a matter of time before the eternal darkness seeps in. His pretty pale lips mouth one last thing, as they are the last body parts to fall into the listless, murky waters below. Yet, the hacked and slashed boy’s soulless wine-colored orbs keep staring up above and hoping for someone to come and save him.

 _…can-…escape…_  


* * *

  
There are no clouds up above; it is a clear blue mirroring the image below. You breathe in the brackish sea air and notice that a familiar island is slowly coming into viewpoint. It is going to be your home for the next two months of summer vacation due to the extra care that your uncle needs with his job as shrine caretaker. Your uncle is a kind man, but the years are catching up to him, but there seems to be something else to his sudden illness than just that. However, you aren’t going to be the only one there, as you watch the group of rowdy teenagers from the side looking at the upcoming shoreline as well.

“So…th-at where you uncle l-ives?”

“Yeah! Are you all right, Tsuna?”

  
There is a nauseous look to the brown-haired teenager that makes you almost sympathize with him. It was not a big secret that he could not swim, but you never thought that he could get seasick so quickly or for so long. You pat his back lightly and he returns the gesture with a flighty smile before a certain movement of the ferry sends him back to the bathroom with Gokudera hot on his heels. You almost laugh at the sight if it were not for the familiar ring of the violet cell phone in your skirt’s pocket. A simple message from a worried mother on how you should contact your uncle before reaching the mainland, so you did just that.

 ** _Uncle, I will be arriving soon._**

 ** _Um…who is this?_**

  
You blink at the quick reply and have a sudden feeling of confusion building within you. Wasn’t this his number? Sure, he wasn’t as good with technology as your mother, but this was completely bizarre. So, you return the message with an explanation about who you are, hoping that you weren’t making a completely fool of yourself to someone else. This is getting to be rather embarrassing, as the cell phone beeps with a response. 

 ** _I don’t have a niece. I haven’t even finished high school yet._**

 ** _I’m sorry. I must have the wrong number._**

 ** _Is your uncle Hitachi of Kurumi Shrine?_**

  
You blink at the sudden question from the stranger on the other side of the phone line. It would be rather foolish on your part to continue the conversation with a person you had never met before, but you are rather headstrong about this at the current moment. It would seem that your mother’s talks of there being murder-rapist-serial killers everywhere didn’t work, as you quickly press the send button as a confirmation to his question. Besides, it would be nice to know someone around your age on island for the summer; at least, that is how you rationalize it in the end. So, with the sunshine quickly turning into dusk and land only a few minuets away, you send the mysterious person one last message, unaware what you are throwing yourself into for the rest of this vacation and maybe, your life as well. 

 ** _Hey, what’s your name?_**

 ** _Oh…I’m Kozato Enma._**

 _hang up,_  
…i’m alone again.

 


	2. a dream-eating girl in the sand.

**i’ll eat all the bad dreams for you.**

There is a diminutive lopsided smile on his sutured lips, as he watches the girl pass by. His wine-red eyes cannot see her very well, but the boy knows that it is her. It is something like love at first sight, like finding the other half of his battered and strangled soul, but it is deeper than that. She is the person that can set him of this murky abyss that he had been living in. However, glancing at his drenched and ripped school uniform, he wonders if she will like him. His clothes are two sizes too big for him with stitches running up and down the exposed and gaunt skin that he calls home. He is slowly losing the ability to see from those pretty, broken wineglass orbs of him. He is wear and tear at its worst, but somehow he knows that she will like him. It is something of a gut feeling. This does not stop the hollowed out words running out his mouth like blood from his heart to mix with the air and sea around him. 

 _…sav-…me.._  


* * *

  
You stare the waves crashing into the shoreline with a giant smile on your face. The pristine water tickles your toes, as you watch the others enjoy the beach life — well, the ones that can swim. Tsuna was trying his hardest not to fall into the water, as Reborn forced him into the sea with an inner tube on. Everyone else was doing their own things like Ryohei running sprints on the sandy ground and the girls making a sand castle with the children. However, you were sitting under an umbrella with your phone at hand. You didn’t know why, but since you had settled into the shrine, you kept talking to Enma. It helped passed the time in-between sightseeing and helping your unresponsive uncle, besides his antics were cute.

 ** _I’m at the beach with friends, Enma-kun!_**

 ** _A-Ah, I hope you’re having fun._**

  
You smile at the small text screen and wonder if you will ever meet the teenager. He had told you that he and his older cousin knew your uncle before he got sick. You had tried to ask the dark-haired man if he knew them, but he just gave you a blank stare before going back to sleep or cleaning. His attitude worried you, but the doctors couldn’t do anything about; it was like he was slowly losing his mind. You try your hardest to keep everything in order for him so that he can heal on his own. It is tenacious, but this afternoon fun is calming as a small reward for doing so.

“Kick, Tsuna, Kick!”

  
The brown-haired teenager smiles nervously from the distance, as Haru and Kyoko quickly grabs you and begin leading you into the open sea. You are laughing with the girls, as Lambo and I-pin follow you, unaware of the light ring tone coming from your phone. Nearly everyone is in the water now, as you start a splashing fight with Yamamoto, as the mafia boss tries his hardest to stay afloat. Everything is fun and games until you feel something pulling on your leg. It starts as a limp jerk, but it gets harder by the second, third, and fourth time. By the fifth pull, you are being pulled underwater causing you to scream and turning everyone’s attention towards you. Tsuna screams your name as you struggled to breathe.

“ _…he-lp…me…_ ”

  
Your eyes close in fear due to the sudden voice you hear over the ripple of waves. However, there is a tingling feeling crawling upward from the beginning of your feet and into your thighs. It is like a million spiny needles pricking your skin, but at the same time it leaves a sticky and numbing feeling in its wake. This strange sensation is what causes you to open your eyes and look down at your feet. Yet, you are met with a harrowing sight of a faceless mesh of skin with perturbed red orbs looking directly at you. Your scream goes unheard with the water quickly filling your lungs, as you begin to black out with someone warm and familiar dragging you back to the surface. 

“..hey…wake-up.”

“Will she be all right?”

  
Later on, you hear voices stirring you awake and notice that everyone is around your beach towel. However, you only remember that face in the sea and know that it will fill your nightmares for days to come, so you grab and hug the closest person to you, which is Tsuna. The brown-haired youth is surprised over your sudden attachment, but when you begin crying, he tries his best to console you. Everyone has a worried look on their faces, as Reborn seems to be impassive as ever while watching the scene. Nobody seems to notice the dimming lights of your phone, as the battery slowly dies out or the last message on the display screen.

 ** _Are you okay?_** __

hey,  
did you get my message?

 

 


	3. in a place without you.

transient  
 **that place of yours has the same sky, only, it doesn’t have me.**

  
Bleeding orbs keep staring at the sleeping girl across the shrine’s vast gardens. There is a petty frown on those stitched up lips of his, if one tries hard enough to notice. His black-sleeved hands are wrapped around his endless shivering and patched up body. The loving gaze he has on the girl turns into bright flare whenever a brown-haired boy enters the room. He is taking care of his love. Her pretty screaming is still ringing in his empty head filled with other nonsensical thoughts. It is almost if she was disgusted in seeing that form of him. But, that is silly; since they are suppose to love each other, like he was already with the remains of his two-toned heart. So, there has to be something else in the equation that he is forgetting. That other  _living_  boy is probably the problem and a little voice answers back in affirmation. His haphazard over glazed eyes begin to twinkle and that frown turns into a saturated smile. Get rid of the boy and he has the damsel for himself, just like in any other good love story. 

 _…mi-ne…_  


* * *

  
You don't go to sleep early that night; rather it takes some coaxing from Tsuna for you do so. Even then, you don’t get a full night’s rest, waking up in an early part of the afternoon. You are hungry and in a daze when your uncle tells you in a rather monotone voice that your friends have been calling you all morning and leaving various messages. They were going to explore the other side of the island today, so they left early in the morning. Now, you probably wouldn’t be able to see them until tomorrow. However, you wonder why they hadn’t tried reaching you by cell phone instead. You grab a bowl cereal and head to the outside porch of the massive temple. Looking at the violet contraption in your hands, you notice that there is only one message since your little episode the day before. 

 ** _Are you okay?_**

 ** _Yeah, just in a small incident._**

  
For some reason, the bold text of his message sends shivers running down your spine. The timing is so odd, but you decide to ignore you it — like he would believe you, anyways. Tsuna didn’t believe your little story of what had happened back at the beach. He said, that either the sun or humidity were probably just getting to you, since it was rather different from the temperature back in Namimori. Honestly, you want to believe that, but that “thing” touching and looking right back at you still seems too real for you to believe otherwise. You let out a humorless laugh at your expense. You are probably losing a few bolts in your head due to this trip or catching it from your elder relative. The last thing you want was to end up like your uncle. So, with that thought in mind, you decide to explore the massive grounds that the shrine was laid out on.

 ** _What are you doing today?_**

 ** _Hanging around the shrine._**

  
For the rest of the day, you work your way through the steep cliffs and sidewalks placed for the tourists to look out off, while having a friendly text chat with Enma. The boy is a real help when he wants to be, but the rest of the time he seems to be utterly useless. He gives you little tips on what are the best places to see and from where, but other times it seems that he is too scattered-brained and has forgotten how to deal with the shrine’s meandering labyrinth. However, you don't blame him too much since he had said that he hadn’t seen the shrine after moving away with his older cousin. You really have to get some answers for your uncle on this mysterious boy. You stop at your next destination with a fractious look on your face. Is this really what he wanted you to see?

 ** _Aren’t these marsh fields?_**

 ** _Yeah, they were my favorite place._**

  
You want to laugh as his response since there are more beautiful places than this simple fenland. There is an old post next to the closing like there is everywhere to explain the area’s significance. You read the yellowing piece of paper out loud with the title of  _Azumi Marshlands_. You blink at the names of the caretakers and little pictures next to them. One was clearly your uncle looking like his past energetic self. Another was a pretty black-haired girl with a foreign name you cannot make out, just the last name of  _Suzuki_  at the end. The last picture is blocked out with moss and grim, but you can make out a gloomy-looking teenager with the last name of  _Kozato_. His red-encompassed orbs are looking right at you in the picture, reminding you of something else. You would’ve asked him that day too, if your sick uncle hadn’t come out screaming and dragging you away from the lowland. 

 ** _I want to meet you._** __

can you leave  
...a message after the beep?

 


	4. boy+girl of the fragile type.

transient   
**in reality, you’re desperately looking for someone.**

  
There is a confused glaze passing through his sweet bloodied orbs. He keeps staring the girl and that living boy with something rattling in his tattered heart. She has not been answering back his messages or interacting with him and it is driving him livid within that little watery cage of his. He hates the boy for taking her away, a princess needs their knight. Wasn’t he clearly hers? The encompassed eyes boy sits in the mossy and jagged rocks with the too big school clothes clinging to his body like the stitches on his patched up skin. There is a cold shiver running down his cracked and broken spinal cord, as his eyes turn  _red_   **red**   _red_. His sullen mood, however, dissipates with a feral smile growing ontp his sutured lips. He knows that boy can’t keep her forever and eventually she will fall into his arms and perpetual sleep — just like in any good fairytale.  
  


_…jus-…wait…_   


* * *

  
Tsuna is watching you and the other girls squeal and talk about a nearby café just by the coastline of the island. Everyone is trailing behind the four of you and he cannot deny that it is odd to see you in a summer dress and he is even happier about that refreshing smile on your face. He hasn’t seen you in a week and when he caught a glimpse of you in the shrine there was usually an embittered look on your face. Maybe, that is why you have been paying so much attention to your phone in the past couple of outings since then; it had been your only connection to the outside when you were grounded. However, there seems to be some type of anxiety running through your veins like a child during their birthday and he wonders what you were so excited about. It is just a piece of cake and some tea, right?  
  


“We’re here!”

“Hello, welcome to Ami’s Café.”

  
You watch Kyoko, Haru and to a non-existent degree Chrome smile at the charming waiter that shows you all into the adorable interior of the shop. The boys seem rather cautious on entering the shop if it was not for the serious deadpan look and Reborn pulling out a gun at the hapless teenager, but none is really paying much attention to them. Surely, you aren't paying attention to their antics, but rather you are trying to see if you notice a red-haired boy in a sea of unfamiliar faces, unaware the burgundy colored eyes were watching you in the distance.   
  


“The waitress will come to take your orders soon.”

“What should we order?”

  
The rest of the group is talking about what they are going to order when the waitress comes up to them. You really aren't in the mood for sweets or anything else for that matter. In truth, you are growing less and less hungry with the food around the island each day, like it has some vile taste to it that makes you want to throw up. Besides, that fact, you were growing more dependent on your phone since your uncle grounded you last week due to being too close to the “dangerous marshlands”. It is nice to see him responsive towards him, though his sudden fury scared you the most out of his marathon of screaming into your ears after he dragged you back into the shrine. Nevertheless, you are dragged out of your petty thoughts by a serene yet firm voice from above.   
  


“What will you have today?”

“...ah.”

  
Everyone turns to look at the rather tall girl dressed in a maid outfit, It is easy to notice where the boys are looking, but you feel like you are staring at a photograph. Your suspicions are somewhat confirmed at the nameplate placed on her large bosom with the name of  _A.Suzuki._  written on it. However, the thing that scares you the most are those crimson eyes of hers, which remind you of that  **thing**  you had encountered back on the beach. It still haunts your nightmares, as a cold shiver rocks your body and you suddenly feel the need to excuse yourself to the bathroom. You did so on shaky legs with her condensing look burning the back of your cranium. You stay there for a while until you hear the door open and the sound of heels on the whitewashed floor. The dark-haired girl gives you a crossed look, as you gulp before returning to stare at the sink.  
  


“Enma is sick.”

“W-what?”

“He got sick during the weekend.”

  
You want to say that she is lying because there seems to be a loophole in her story because you are sure he would have told you. Yet, she crosses her arms and intensifies her glare in a gesture that makes you rethink your position. So, you just nod numbly at her response and give her a small gesture of thanks. She does not say anything, as you walk —almost limping- out of the room to the welcoming arms of the concerned brown-haired boy. It is the second time you blackout on this trip, but Tsuna is apprehensive of the high fever that you are currently running. Adelheid just watches the scene with an unconcerned look and a frown plastered on her face, as a small beep makes itself known from her white apron’s pocket. Her frown grows and she can feel a presence next to her. Maybe, it is the sickly boy that she had grown up with, yet it is a darker personality than she ever knew him to be.   
  


“What are you planning, cousin?”

**_Thank you for the lie._ ** __

who  
…is on the other side of the phone?


	5. i want to snatch you away.

transient   
**i hate how he can steal your warmth in an instant.**

  
He is watching the shallow breaths leave her body in slow intervals. Her eyes are closed, as a red blush consumes her face, while he moves sluggishly closer to her body. The black sleeves of his haggard school uniform are sliding up to reveal more sown up bones and discolored skin. His sutured grin grows, as he grabs her wrist and he can feel the pulse underneath the skin. He is almost envious of his princess, but the sight of her fighting for her life makes up for it. He has things planned for her and that living boy surely must be staring at him from across the room. He places his moist forehead on top of hers, wishing that her eyes would open. She moans and wants to move away from him —from his rancid smell of decomposing flesh-, but his pallid hand stops any such movement. A chuckle escapes his mouth —like water rippling- as, toffee colored eyes widen to meet his bloody red ones. His body is over hers and the boy freezes because he has something planned for all of them.  
  


_...watch-…me…_   


* * *

  
You uncle —Hitachi- stares at the vast greenery around him. The one that he had fallen in love with all those years back; the same one he had planned to grow and nature and maybe one day share with a family of his own. Yet, fate was cruel to him from day one. His wife soon died after they were married, leaving him alone with dashed hopes and dreams of the future he had envisioned once within the shire walls. Instead, he watches other couples grow old together and have their children. Sometimes, they came and visited —along with the bundle of tourists- telling their children that they should be nice to the “shrine keeper”. He would give them a weary smile, but they never seem to understand. He just wants them to leave, so he could die alone. But, it never came, the constant annoyance of life grew around him until one day he just snapped. It had been one of those days were he just wanted to be alone, but everyone kept on bothering him. The constant calls from his younger sister, the arguing with the incoming tourists…everything was becoming static in his mind until a voice just snapped the chord in his fragile mind. It wasn’t supposed to end like this, it is something he tells himself everyday, but that still doesn’t change the disgusting smell coming out of the marshes  
  


_…p-people are complaining ab…_

  
Hitachi shakes his head to get the awful images out of his mind. The ones that still haunt him at night when the shadows come and eat him alive. The screaming still haunts him, as he tugged the boy deeper into the dirt hole that he had created. He was bleeding profusely from where the shovel hit and the severe beatings that he had been given. The long knife, usually used to cut the overgrowing bamboo leaves, in his hands as he began to slowly chop the boy’s body, part by painful part. Bloody red eyes kept staring at him all the while, pleading for it to end — just not exactly in the way he wanted it to. In the end, nobody would miss a poor orphaned boy. Maybe, his cousin, but he would always tell her how he wants to run away and he finally he did, just to a different place and time; a place where the dead don't quite know how to rest in peace just yet. Hitachi shakes his head to forget until another day, too caught up in his nightmares to notice the one going on around him at the current moment.   
  


“Tsuna, I’m sorry. Please w-wak-e u-up!”

…you h-ha-ve t-to-

“No, shut up! Stay out of my head…”

  
The room grows several degrees colder, as you shake you head in pain. You can feel something crawling on your skin, like a million ants climbing onto you, but as you try your hardest to push them away, the sensation keeps getting worst. Your head is still dizzy from the sickness that you had suffer from these past couple of days, but that doesn’t excuse the image of Tsuna’s body in front of you with blood flowing freely from the wound on his head. The glass shards deeply embedded into his forehead and on the ground surrounding his motionless body. You don’t quite remember how you ended up like this, but his sourly sweet voice keeps encouraging that it is the right thing to do. It is the same one that has been calling you in your delirium-filled dreams and for some reasons as the room gets colder you find it harder to deny his orders. Tsuna —Tsunayoshi Sawada- has always been a good boy, but wouldn’t it be better to free him of the evils of the world. The good always die young, don’t they?  
  


“Y…ess…”

“P-Pl…ea…se n-o…”

  
Tsuna’s breath is labored at best, as he tries to slowly get up. However, the voice in your head beats him to it, as you grab a nearby vase and smash it into his head again. The yellow and white carnations spill and are painted a beautiful deep scarlet as he falls to the ground once more. Your eyes are a deep mix of your own color and a rich wine because you aren’t exactly yourself anymore at that moment. Your inner self is raging in fear and sadness, but a calm coldness seeps into your bones. A familiar voice calls your name, gurgling and breaking up like a telephone call, but nevertheless soothing, as he gives you the next steps to follow. He says it will be beautiful and in the miasma of your mind and you believe him wholeheartedly. So, you drag the brown-haired boy’s body with strength that isn’t quite yours. Deeper and deeper into the marshlands where he greets you with a warm smile on his bloodied face, while you ignore the brown eyes slowly trying to open up again. Instead, he is met with that frightening mix of wine and your own familiar eye color —once warm and hopeful is now frozen and dead- as you grab a rag to slowly wrap it around his mouth. The same figure from a few nights before is standing behind you with an uncharacteristically cruel smile on his face.   
  


" _Tsu-na..._ "

  
It is your voice he hears one last time before everything goes dark, soft and sweet but with his —Enma’s- underlying bitterness at the edge. Maybe, Tsuna will go to the same place where Enma now resides -vengeful and angry, just like him- or maybe a place bright and shining where he can’t feel the pain of the knife slowing craving out his heart.   
  


“…He sa-id ever-y-one ha-ss to p-a-y, T-su…”

_please,  
dial one for any needed assistance._


	6. ring, ring signal.

**i’ll take these dreams in my hand and visit you, one day.**

  
He stares at the girl from across the room, a putrid and rancid looking smile slowly blooming across his face as he slowly gets closer to you. However, she keeps moving farther and farther away from him at the sight of his slow crawl and the unbearable smell of stagnant water and dead grass that seems to gives her stomach an unpleasant feeling. The room is dark and the only that signal that he is getting closer to her are the sight of his bloody red eyes jaunting closer towards her direction. She wants to scream, but it dies at the end of her throat when she feels something cold take a hold of her calf and she fights and fights, but he brings a dream-like quality that makes her eyes heavy and her arms soon give up the struggle. The hand slowly makes it up her body until he is grabbing her face like a fragile doll with heavy set eyes. He gives her a crooked smile that doesn’t quite seem to fit on his face due to all the stitches running up and down it. Nevertheless, she smiles back as the red-haired boy turns her face along with her body to look at something hidden in the dark. Her hand by accident stumbles upon something wet and sticky, as her eyes slowly look up to see the mangled body of a boy that seems oddly familiar and all she can do is keep staring at those large brown eyes, as the red-haired boy’s hold sluggishly turns into an embrace. His laughter in her ear sounds like waves, as she falls into a deep sleep with those brown eyes unblinking at the almost sickly romantic sight.   
  


_we…alm-st do-ne…_

* * *

  
Hitachi wakes up to the smell of blood seeping into his room and it makes him almost throw up all of his dinner. The man finds himself slowly being awakened from the miasma that his mind has been in for the past year. His mind had been there at times throughout certain events, like when his younger sister would call and ask her pointless questions of how he was or when he welcomed her niece and her friends to the island to celebrate their small vacation. The rest of the time it wasn’t, just like the rest of him that no longer wished to go on with such a pointless existence, but he is too much of coward to take his own life. However, he is cold enough to take that of another, like he had done with Kozato Enma. It was just one of the many decisions that plagued his mind whenever he was alone in the darkness of the night and his failures. However, tonight he wasn’t supposed to be alone, his niece was to be asleep and a little sick, if he remembers correctly in a room not too far from his, but he hadn’t heard a sound from her and her friend since the early evening. Now, the smell of blood reminds him of the secret that he buried within the murky swaps that belonged to the shrine. He stares at the floor, remembering the dimming red orbs of a certain red-haired boy with a sickness growing in his stomach as he decides that red is a disgusting color.   
  


“Uncle…” 

“Come out from wherever you are, right now.”

_He said you had to die, Uncle._

  
Hitachi freezes in the middle of the dark room, but that is enough time for you —deranged and completely under Enma’s control- to hit the side of his body. The breathe leaves the elder man’s body as he falls to the wood floor and his senses are suddenly filled with the rotting smell of death and the darker areas of the swamp that he had never gone to explore in all his years of owing the area. His eyes roll into the back of his head as the same large object is being beaten onto to his head over and over again without the aggression ever letting up for a moment, with you whispering dark things that he doesn’t understand until he can no longer breath. In fact by the end of the ordeal, his head is nothing by a caved-in pile of bones, skin, and blood that are splattered all over the room and yourself as well. The only sound in the room is your heavy breathing, as you collapse onto your knees into the sticky, bright red liquid from the exhaustion that comes from such a brutal beating. There is a quick buzzing in your head that tells you that the job isn’t done yet and you simply nod and slowly pick yourself up and try your hardest to pull the man’s body from the shrine area to the grassier area where you could finish the job. However, it was hard for you due the weight disadvantage until you feel that someone is picks up the other side of his body and drags your deceased uncle with you. Patchwork skin curls into a smile and that same hazy feeling sets into your bones once again, while he chuckles darkly at the sight of blood from a certain brown-haired youth that ended up the same way the old man did. The same way you would end as well.  
  


**_Good job, dear._ **

“Yes, I saw this blood-covered girl vanish into the forest.”

_hello operator, can you give me number nine?_


	7. goodbye, world's end.

**here, i am trying to live, but failing.**

“Enma…”

  
Her breathing is coming out in short, shallow gaps as she looks at him from her stop up above; the fear in her eyes is the loveliest thing he has seen in a long time. He sits there, waiting for her to continue with the next step of his plan. She has done so well up until none, but his princess is flattering during the final curtain call. She keeps looking at him to tell her what to do next —even though she already knows what she has to do– and he gets up on shaky, stitched up legs. The air is filled with the smell of blood, of rotting corpses, and the dying grass within the marsh fields, but that does not bother her anymore as he wraps his school uniform covered arms around her knees. Her body stiffs for a moment —because it still rejects him unlike her mind– as the blood on his sleeves paint her legs a bright, bright red. He cranks his head upwards, which moved back much farther than a normal human’s would, and he looks at her with those glazed, molten orbs. He looks at her with those same eyes that he did back in the beach all those weeks ago and this time she doesn’t run away. Her feet stops shaking and the foot stool underneath her stops creaking back and forth, he smiles with cracked and split opens lips and she gives a timid grin back. If his chopped up heart could still beat it would probably to so now, like he feels hers doing so at this current moment. He crushes his arms around his living princess because he is so in love with her, yet so jealous of her. Why did it have to be him? Why did they have to meet like this? Yet, his anger quick subsides when she places her hands on his cold and wet cheek. She smiles and whispers the words that he has been hoping to hear for years. It leaves him in a momentary stupor, but he knows what is has to do now —he wants to be with her forever and ever. It is what makes his next actions so easy for him, especially since the main instrument is already tied lovingly around her neck. He releases her legs, smiles at her, and quickly kicks the last thing supporting her from falling down completely, but she never quite makes it to touch the ground. Her eyes slowly flicker out until she is gone completely from the mortal realm and he smiles a sick, twisted grin and releases a watery laugh —as she swings back and forth in the dark, forever and ever, just like their love– that ripples throughout the room filled with blood and gore. A room will never see the sight anything like this ever again or of him because he is done, he is at peace, and most of all he can finally rest in peace. 

 _love…you._

* * *

  
“Any signs of the older man yet?”

“Nothing, sir.”

  
There is a commotion surrounding the shrine and the police are doing the best they can to handle the situation. Yet, they are failing, though not because they are incompetent, no, it is because they have never been handed a case like this before. They had gotten a call by a man say that he had seen something in the shrine in the early morning hours, but they didn’t investigate because this man was the known drunkard of the island. It wasn’t until mid-morning that they went to the island’s popular tourist attraction because a small group of tourists were demanding help on contacting their friends that have not come out of the shrine nor have contacted them in quite some time and the police chief almost didn’t do anything about their situation because who would believe such a tale. He would not have done anything if he had not looked at the child with those black, black eyes that dared him not to look into the incident. So, now they are here with a hanging girl and boy whose heart has been carved out without any sign of the deceased girl’s uncle and they aren’t sure if he had committed the crime or not. He glances at his side to see the small group of teenagers and how they are suffering over the loss. The two girls are hugging themselves and crying, while the boys are both somber and silent, though the silver-haired boy is tightly gripping his hands together as if he had failed in something more important than himself. The child with those black eyes is not with them and the police officer doesn’t know if he should be worried or relived. He puts his hands in his pockets and stares at the eerily silent grasslands cut off with police tape after they had found the second body. Suddenly, he gets called over by one of his detectives from inside the large shrine, telling him something important has been found. Once he goes inside —walking after crossing the blood stained room with the noose still hanging that will surely be in his nightmares of nights to come– when one of his men hands him a letter in neatly, slanted cursive.

“We found this in the older man’s room.”

“Have you found anything else of his?”

“No, everything belonging to him is gone. There are no foot or fingerprints, nor blood either, sir.”

“It’s like he wanted to disappear completely.”

  
The deputy nods and hands his commanding officer what they had just found, but had placed in plastic to conserve as evidence — a letter. They are the disappeared man’s words scrambled in jumbled sentences on a single piece of paper about his wife, his ruined life, and about killing and the need to kill because he had done it before to an orphan boy that used to volunteer within the shire and then he says goodbye because he knows that they will never find, not his body anyways. The chief almost wants to crush the letter in between his hands at how merciless and cowardly this man could be to take this two, three he reminds himself, young people’s lives. He glances at the two bodies not too far away from him zipped up in body bags. He wonders how he will break the news to the parents once they arrive to the island, but he’ll make sure to catch the bastard. This oath he swears underneath his breath, as he follows it with yell to all his officers to work hard so they can put this case to rest because that is what the death deserve the most, but one has to wonder if they ever really will.

“Did you know?”

“I’m not very sure what I know anymore.”

  
She crosses her arms over her chest, as she watches the paramedics roll up the bodies, place them on stretchers, and drive them off to the local morgue. There is man wearing a fedora besides her, but she doesn’t look at him; she doesn’t have the will to at the current moment after the question he has asked. She wonders how long she actually knew what had happened to her younger cousin. When did she start having the nightmares that forced her to leave the shrine? When did she start hearing that gurgling voice on the other side of the phone or see his red, red eyes whenever she stared into a mirror long enough? It was quite some time ago, but she was sure no one would listen to her —who cared about some poor orphans?– so she stayed quiet and let him roam free and now look what he has done. Lives have been ruined because of her choice, but their lives had been ruined since the beginning, so did it really matter? She isn’t quite sure of the answer to that, as the man turns to leave. Adelheid lets out a shaky breath as her phone begins to ring, but she doesn’t answer it, instead she grabs it and throws it into the nearest trash can, but she can still hear it. There is still the same ringing echoing in her ears, in her mind and she is sure that it will never leave her. Her knees shake a bit, but she stays firm like she always has and the suited man says one last thing before leaving.

“I am sorry for your loss.”

“I am for yours as well.” 

 _the person you are trying to reach is currently unavailable._

 


	8. abnormal cherry blossoms.

_i still love you, today as well._

Twenty-six years later.

“Can’t we look at the marshlands?”

“Maybe, we shouldn’t be bothering her.”

“I heard the hydrangeas look very pretty near the pool this time of year.”

“My answer is the same of yesterday and the day before, no.”

  
There are children running around the shrine as the sun begins to set. It’s that same group of middle-school aged children that won’t leave her alone no matter how mean she is towards them. Their mothers are cautious and yell at them to come back home by a certain time, nevertheless they keep watching with guarded eyes. The children are wearier today than usual as they hide behind the shadows, slowly creeping until they are standing in front of her. She is sweeping the large, cobblestone steps of the shrine —the one that none visits anymore and dark stories circulate of, but she has to keep watch because she owes them that much- and all three of them give her a snot-nosed smiles that make her frown instantly. Yet, her facial expression is directed more towards the girl who seems to be dragging around the shy red-haired and jittery brown-haired boys. Yet, the black-haired woman can clearly hear all three of their pairs of knees shaking together with their arms linked together — the girl in the center and each boy holding one of her arms as support- and it’s then the women feels something numbing in the back of her mind. The girl smiles and Adelheid bitterly wonders if this child will always be able to smile like that. The girl begins to talk, as red eyes move to look at the smallest child of the trio.

“What do you want?”

“We want to go inside and see the shrine!”

“No.”

  
The girl pouts and declares that she will back tomorrow and until Adelheid decides to let them in. The boys give her a pair of weary smiles before pulling her back to where her mother is waiting. The elderly woman can hear the scolding that the young girl is receiving because it is better for them to be afraid and she alone to carry this burden than for another group of children be brought done by the evil spirits haunting the shrine. She begins to resume her sweeping, but stops when she sees the red-haired looking at her before turning his gaze away quickly. The numbing sensation returns as the evening sky seems to welcome the childish laughter that only she seems to here because they —all three of them- are all still trapped here, playing in the temple gardens as if they were still alive. Yet, this place also held whatever had taken her cousin’s hate and caused the disaster all those years ago. All she could do was hold it back for as long as she lived with that hope that the same thing would not occur once again, but look at the trio that so frequently bothered her for entrance, especially that quite red-haired boy. She grasped her broom tighter, as a cold night breeze from the ocean began to set in. 

“Please, keep them stay safe and away from here.”

…because history had a tendency of repeating itself. 

 **when will we be able to bloom those poisonous flowers in your heart, again?**

 


End file.
